The disciples of Jesus had learned to understand something of the connection between Christ’s wondrous life in public and His secret life of prayer. They were with Him and had seen Him pray. Moreover, they had learned to believe in Him as a Master in the art of prayer. None could pray like Him. And so they went to Him with the request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In later years they would tell us that there were few things more wonderful or blessed that He taught them than His lessons on prayer. Because He Himself is our life, we should feel assured that if we ask, He will be delighted to take us into closer fellowship with Himself and teach us to pray as He prays. How did Jesus Pray one might ask?
Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can pray. It is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise. Prayer is fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One. The powers of the eternal world have been placed at prayer’s disposal. It is the very essence of true religion and the channel of all blessings. The secret of power and life not only for ourselves, but for others, for the church, and for the world. It is to prayer that God has given the right to take hold of Him and His strength. It is on prayer that the promises wait for their fulfillment. The kingdom waits for its coming, and the glory of God waits for its full revelation. The Spirit of God can enable us to do it right.
Manner of Prayer
At first there is no work that appears so simple; later on, none that is more difficult. And the confession is forced from us: we do not know how to pray as we should (Romans 8:26). It is true we have God’s Word with its clear and sure promises. But the spirit of the world and confidence in the flesh has so darkened our minds that we don’t always know how to apply the Word. In spiritual matters we are still less able to use the wonderful liberty our Father has given us to ask for what we need.
- It must be to the glory of God.
- In full surrender to His will.
- Full assurance of faith.
- In the name of Jesus.
- With a perseverance that, if need be, refuses to be denied.
Jesus knows what prayer is. He learned it amid the trials and tears of His earthly life. In heaven it is still His beloved work. Nothing delights Him more than to find those whom He can take with Him into the Father’s presence. Clothing them with power to praying down God’s blessing to those around them, training them to be His fellow workers in the intercession by which the kingdom is to be revealed on earth. By His Holy Spirit, He has access to our hearts and teaches us to pray by showing us the sin that hinders the prayer or by giving us the assurance that we please God. He teaches by giving not only thoughts of what to ask or how to ask. But be breathing unto us the very spirit of prayer and living within us as the Great Intercessor. As He makes us partakers of His righteousness and HIs life, He will make us partakers of His intercession, too.
The Intercession of Jesus
The great work that Jesus began on earth of reconciling God and man in his own body, he carries on in heaven. To accomplish this, He took the conflict between God’s righteousness and our sin into His own person. On the cross, He ended the struggle once and for all in His own body. Then He ascended to heaven, where He carries out the deliverance He obtained and manifests His victory in each member of His body. This is why He lives to pray. In His unceasing intercession, He places Himself in living fellowship with the unceasing prayer of His redeemed ones. It is His unceasing intercession that shows itself in their prayers, giving them a power they never had before.
The place and power of prayer in the Christian life is too little understood. As long as we view pray simply as the means of maintaining our own Christian lives, we will not fully understand what it is really supposed to be. But when we lean to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted to us. The root and strength of all other work. We will see that there is nothing we need to study and practice more than the art of praying.
Abide in Christ
Christ taught us that the answer to prayer depended upon certain conditions. He spoke of faith, of perseverance, of praying in His name, of praying in the will of God. These conditions are summed up in the central scripture “if you abide in me … ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). It becomes clear that the power to pray the effectual prayer of faith depends upon the life. It is only to a man given up to live as entirely in Christ and for Christ. But as the branch in the vine and for the vine that these promises can come true. “In that day,” Christ said, the Day of Pentecost, “ye shall ask … in my name” (John 16:23). It is only in a life full of the Holy Spirit that the true power to ask in Christ’s name can be known.
The power of the church to truly bless rest on intercession: asking and receiving heavenly gifts to carry to men. Because this is so, it is no wonder that where – owing to lack of teaching or spiritual insight – we put the trust in our own diligence and effort – to the influence of the world and the flesh – and work more than we pray, the presence and power of God are not seen in our work as we would wish. A life abiding in Christ and filled with the Spirit. A life entirely given up as a branch for the work of the vine, has the power to claim these promises and to pray as Jesus Prayed.